Page 6 of Explode
The haze of anger cleared as Hendrix disappeared and Miles’ facecame back into focus. My chest heaved with the sudden bout of exertion and it took a minute for my entire body to stop shaking.
“You good?” Miles asked when I’d finally calmed down, his browspulled together in concern, blood smeared on his face.
“Yeah,” I croaked. Now the adrenaline was fading, I was left withnothing but the ache in my heart. Miles rolled off me, falling to my side and laying in the grass next to me, both our chests heaving.
Neither of us spoke. Instead, I let the tears come, letting myself havea moment to miss Kai. To allow myself to remember him, to wish things were different, and he was still here.
“Talk to me, Riley,” Miles said, breaking the silence when my sobsslowed.
“What is there to say?” I replied when I was sure I could talk withoutbeing a blubbering mess.
“Tell me how you are feeling, you keep everything bottled up.” He wasright. I barely spoke about Kai, and even when Miles tried to bring him up, I always shut the conversation down. I turned to look at him, he was lying on his back, looking up at the warm sun beating down on us.
“What do you want me to say, Miles? You want me to tell you howmuch my heart hurts every day? Or that most days I miss Kai so fucking much I can barely breathe?” My voice broke. I took a deep breath and turned away, looking up at the blue sky. “Talking about it won’t change what happened, he’s gone, and that’s all there is to it.”
He didn’t reply because there were no words to say back to me. Kaiwas gone, talking about it wouldn’t bring him back.
Nothingwould bring him back.
We lay in silence, both lost in our thoughts. After a while, he sat upand wiped the blood from his nose. Following suit, I sat up and started pulling the gloves off. I was so done with our boxing lesson for the day.
“Is your nose okay?”
He chuckled. “It’s not broken, reckon it’ll be sore for a few days,and no doubt I’ll have some shiners under my eyes.”
His nose had stopped bleeding, and he’d wiped the majority of theblood away. But it had begun to swell, and traces of dried blood smeared his face.
“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling fucking terrible.
“Don’t be, I knew you had it in you, you just had to find it.” My headsnapped to his, my eyes narrowing in anger. “Don’t get pissy with me, Riley. You did good. I’m guessing you were picturing Hendrix when you went to town on my face?”
I ground my teeth at the mention of his name, anger starting to swirlin my belly again. When I nodded, Miles smiled.
“Good. Next time you need to get out of a situation, picture Hendrix’sface, and do exactly what you just did. Hopefully, one day soon, it really will be Hendrix’s face you’re pounding.”
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I grinned at Miles’ words.Grinned at the thought of spilling Hendrix’s blood. A wave of determination crested through me, and I locked the overpowering heartache away again until I was alone to unleash it.
Miles stood and offered me a hand, and when I accepted, he pulledme to my feet.
“You okay after yesterday?” he asked as we started walking backtowards the house.
“Yeah. It’s not like I haven’t seen anyone die before.”
“I know. But it was the first time you were actually involved.”
My mind flashed back to twenty-four hours previous, when JacobWells had begged us to spare his life, offering to turn tail on Hendrix and give up all his secrets.
Funnily enough, both Miles and I agreed not to take him up on hisoffer. We couldn’t find it in ourselves to trust the little snitch. Besides, his phone held a wealth of information, and the idiot was stupid enough not to have better security on it.
The fingers that Miles cut off were now on ice in the freezer, ready tounlock the phone and spill all of Hendrix’s secrets whenever Miles wanted to interrogate it.
Miles was the one to torture Jacob, but I’d been there for thewhole thing. Just like I’d been there at the murders he’d committed in the last week. Every single man he’d killed had at one time been loyal to Kai, but had since declared their loyalties to Hendrix.
It took a lot to stomach the damage Miles inflicted, and at times I’dhad to look away. I never would have believed Miles could be more savage than Kai was until I witnessed it with my own eyes.
Jacob was different though. He’d been the one to hold me in the roomat the warehouse while Kai and Max fought. Jacob had every opportunity to change his mind and help us instead of running away like the little coward he was. Sure, Kai would have killed him for his betrayal, but his death could have been quick. Certainly not drawn out in the way Miles made it.
When Jacob reached the point of taking his last breaths, Idecided I wanted to send Hendrix a little message. It was time he found out who was behind the deaths of his men.
